ETSI: 'Open source clouds worth considering'

Open source software is creating 'tried-and-tested' solutions addressing interoperability, portability and security, writes ETSI, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, in its December 2013 report on standards for cloud computing. Future specifications and standards may derive from open source projects, the standardisation organisation suggests.

ETSI's report does not address the role of open source in cloud computing projects, but the organisation writes that this type of solutions are "worthy of consideration". The organisations writes that "some examples of positive interaction have already been seen between standards bodies and open source projects that should be encouraged."

A spokesperson for ETSI yesterday gave two examples of such interactions. The first one is the TM Forum which has published a set of open source cloud service APIs. Open source reference implementations of these APIs have been made available via GitHub. These cover product ordering, catalog management, Simple Management, Agreement and Trouble Ticket.

Its not a jungle

A second example regards machine-to-machine applications where open source implementations of ETSI standards have been completed. "Actility provides an open source reference design of their M2M gateway, which they say is built according to ETSI M2M standards."

The standardisation organisation was asked by the European Commission to map the standards that will help create trust in cloud offerings, and that will make such services reliable. In its report, ETSI's working group concluded that the cloud standards landscape is "complex but not chaotic and by no means a 'jungle'", as the EC had feared. Providers of cloud services are not widely conforming their solutions to cloud standards, but "given its dynamism, cloud standardisation will likely mature in the next 18 months", ETSI writes in December 2013.

Jobs and GDP

To make cloud solutions interoperable, cloud services require standardised application interfaces, data models and vocabularies, ETSI reports. The biggest issue is to agree on definitions for requirements for service monitoring and agreements on service levels.

Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda welcomed ETSI's cloud standards report, in a statement on 10 January. The European Cloud Computing Strategy aims to create 2.5 million new European jobs and boost EU GDP by EUR 160 billion by 2020, Kroes pointed out.